Shame didn’t stop ex-official, but bill would: Editorial

Is it really worth putting another state law on the books just to head off one greedy, shameless former public “servant”?

Well, yes, in the case of Vernon’s litigious ex-city manager, who is trying to force the taxpayers he defrauded to pay him an obscene pension it is. He needs to be stopped. But more important, those who might follow in his avaricious footsteps must be deterred.

Bruce Malkenhorst is the first to try this scam, but he might not be the last. Some of the infamous former officials of Bell or some other unscrupulous retired officials could follow his lead. Malkenhorst is suing Vernon to regain the portion of his once-outrageous pension that CalPERS slashed after he was convicted of misappropriating public funds.

As was noted in a July editorial, it takes real chutzpah to sue the city you’ve admitted to defrauding. But Malkenhorst has no shame, and is suing Vernon to try to get the $430,000 a year that the California Public Employees Retirement System cut from his pension. You read that figure right: Malkenhorst’s original pension was $545,000 a year, but CalPERS reduced it to $115,000 — still too much for someone who scammed the public he was supposed to serve — because there was not sufficient documentation to support his final Vernon stated salary of $911,000 in 2005.

So state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, who represents Vernon, convinced the Legislature to pass his Senate Bill 39, which would prohibit any “local public officer” convicted of a felony for actions taken in office from suing his former employer over the amount of his pension. Instead, the convicted officer would have to take up the matter through administrative channels with CalPERS.

The urgency bill would apply to any claim still pending as of Jan. 1, 2014, or filed after that date.

It’s not only critics of pension abuse that should support this bill, but also public employee unions and other supporters of public pensions. The blatant abusers of public employment and pensions do the most to give the pension system a bad name.

While it’s true that many, perhaps most, public pensions have been overpromised by pandering politicians and are unsustainable in the long run, it’s the outrageous cases like Malkenhorst’s that make taxpayers livid. Why should any public official be paid $545,000 a year in retirement by taxpayers? There can be no justification for it.

The “regular” CalPERS and CalSTRS pensioners who did the public’s work — honestly — for 30 or 35 years and retired with a pension of $50,000 or so a year should be outraged too.

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It’s not without qualms that we recommend the governor should sign this legislation, because it’s a gut-and-amend bill — and in general we hate gut-and-amend bills. (When it was introduced back in December, SB 39 was called the “Clean Energy Employment and Student Advancement Act of 2013.”) But this is not the usual gut-and-amend procedure that is aimed at currying favor with a lobbyist or slipping something past the public at the last minute.

This bill falls into the only category that’s a legitimate reason to pull out the content of a bill and replace it with entirely unrelated legislation: It’s a situation that arose after the deadline for introducing bills and it’s an urgent matter that should not wait until next year.

Cities should not have to spend public money on legal fees to defend themselves against convicts who defrauded them. Gov. Jerry Brown should sign SB 39.